Happy Valentine's Day! This week I designed frames for a hypothetical video prompted by the word "Nature," which I turned into a concept about the nature of love in the animal kingdom. Did you know that only about 3-5% of an estimated 4,000 species of mammals practice monogamy? Or that the bond between wolf siblings is equally as strong as that between parents? Or that sea otters hold hands while they sleep, which is totally adorable — but, not romantic at all — since it's actually mothers holding onto their pups so they won't drift away.

I learned a whole lot while planning this design board and had just as much fun executing it!

Styleframes

Process work

This week, Sara Roma and I had a lot of fun working on tactile design boards for the theme "Fable." We decided on the story of King Midas whose touch turned everything to gold, since we thought it would be perfect for this hands-on type of project. As a twist, we turned the main character into a beautiful female instead, and we made the visuals feel as if they were part of an imaginative fairytale. The designs follow a tale of a princess who is so obsessed with her gold possessions that she wishes for a golden touch, but grows to regret it very quickly when she can no longer enjoy the tastes or smells around her.

Styleframes

Process shots

Compositing

and a GIF, just for funsies

Make sure to go check out Sara's other tactile & stop motion work — she's super rad and I never would've thought to do something like this on my own!

Well then, here's my card — complete with Augmented Reality capabilities that can be viewed through a new app I'm developing! It's called Kineticards and this business card video is just the start of a whole animated card collection I'll be producing by the end of the year. AR greeting cards, party invitations, birth announcements and gender reveals — the possibilities are endless! I've been working in Unity and Vuforia which are both totally new to me, but I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Stay tuned as I continue to develop, design, and animate this Senior project of mine :)

If ya haven't heard, The Brass Belle in downtown Savannah—AKA the cutest store ever—just got a little bit cooler, because you can now purchase my designs there! I've made a few extra of my Love is Patient, Love is Kind prints (available here on Etsy) & framed them in these nice shadowbox displays. They're a perfect gift for weddings, anniversaries, and all other occasions worth lovin' on! Come on in to The Brass Belle and get yours before it's too late!!

(Update: all three of these have been sold, but I'll be makingmore soon! Stay tuned.)

I've been brushing up my Photoshop skills with some exercises for Design for Motion class this week. Here are the three designs I made for the abstract portion of the assignment; I'm pretty happy with how they turned out :)

The good: I'm going to Los Angeles for the first time ever! The bad: It's because I'm passing on my Nutella crown (er, sash).

Check out NutellaDay.com to meet this year's contest winner, Hannah! We'll be making adorable Nutella-related snacks together at a restaurant in Los Angeles this week. I have no skills in the kitchen whatsoever — I usually just eat my Nutella plain, by the spoonful — so wish me luck! I'm super excited to be back on set and so thankful that Nutella & SapientNitro have decided to fly me across the country for one last hurrah. Look for me and Hannah in a video together soon! & here's the link to last year's videos in case you're in the mood for some reminiscing. :)

Update: The cook-off video has been released! It's embedded below along with some behind-the-scenes highlights:

I am SO excited about the fact that I can finally offer traditional calligraphy services! A big thank you goes out to Meredith at Lowcountry Paper Co. who taught me so much in just two hours. I've never used a metal nib and ink before, and now I feel like a pro!! Can't wait to start addressing wedding envelopes & more with this new skill.

Being an artist sure comes in handy when Christmas rolls around and it's time to start thinking about gifts. Take a look at these custom-lettered prints and paintings I made for my family and friends this year!

My dad and I just spent our birthday in the gorgeous paradise known as Aruba, for the second year in a row! It was so much fun and I wish I could just stay there forever. Of course, the lettering never stops, even on vacation... here's a few highlights from my birthday weekend!!

Here's a sneak peek at a big project I'm working on right now: a mock show package for the annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards! My lovely partner and I are designing the logo, brand elements, opening sequence, lower-thirds titles, and a whole lot more. We wanted to take it back to a retro 2D illustrated version of Nickelodeon, with a central theme of games/toys/fun things. Can't wait to finish & show off the whole package for the event!

Have you been following my new lettering & illustration account @chrissyeckman (Chrissy Eckman Design on Facebook)? If you haven't, you should be! I'm finally following my passions and pursuing a business for selling prints & products as well as commissioned calligraphy. It might be a little while before I finally have my Etsy shop up and running, but for now I'm loving this opportunity to post content and build a following for my upcoming brand. :)

I worked on this project with the lovely Christine White to visualize Ben & Jerry's motto of peace, love, & ice cream. Deliverables include a 15-second video and other branding opportunities that could stem from our identity. Enjoy!

Projects are so much more fun to work on when you're really passionate about the subject. For me, this one was a double whammy on my loves of both typography and language, and I had a great time putting together this video that cleverly teaches lessons on some major spelling and grammar mistakes I'm tired of people making. Thanks to Sean Diaz for the voiceover!

Fivestone recently updated their portfolio with a mega cool project that I was lucky to be a part of this summer. We designed a fully immersive visual/audio experience for a huge football-themed Dollar General conference held at the Music City Event Center in Nashville, TN. I helped animate the transitions in between speakers' names (one of them being Peyton Manning)! Check it out:

A picture book of memories from an incredible summer of almost-adulthood. (This was saved in my drafts for so long and never got posted! I also meant to write about the whole experience, but... woops!)

One of the projects I got to design on my own this summer was a downloadable template project file for ten animated title cards featuring lots of watercolor-style illustrations of flowers and fruits that draw on as the words appear. The project went live on VideoHive this week, and it was selected as the new Featured file (click here to see for yourself)!